


Some Lessons are Better Learned the Hard Way

by Majure



Series: Vera verse [3]
Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: Gen, Self Surgery, Suicidal Ideation, improvised medical equipment, mentions of dead nate
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-22
Updated: 2019-02-22
Packaged: 2019-11-03 16:18:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17881088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Majure/pseuds/Majure
Summary: It took two weeks, three days, and eighteen hours for Vera to learn the most important rule of the Commonwealth.Shoot first.--Or, Vera has a bad experience in the Commonwealth. She's beginning to realize that's the norm.





	Some Lessons are Better Learned the Hard Way

_November 9, 2287_

It took two weeks, three days and eighteen hours for Vera to learn the most important Commonwealth rule: 

Shoot first. 

It happened in the cold pre-dawn mist a few miles west of Parson’s Creamery. Vera had finally mustered up the courage to leave the budding settlement of Sanctuary. Curiosity to see how the rest of the world fared had eaten at her until one cold, grey morning, she slipped away from the little shelter the Minutemen had put together. 

South was a no go - she’d gone that way once, towards Concord, drawn by the sound of gunfire. That venture had ended in blood. East seemed like a safer option. Before the war, there hadn’t been much out there. Parks and golf courses, mostly, with the occasional factory or bottling plant. Vera couldn’t see much of a reason why anyone would want such areas of wide, empty space, so - armed with a dog and the 10 mil she’d looted from the Vault - east she went. 

There really was nothing out that way. Radroaches, the ugly pink things she now knew to be called Molerats, and large black flies, yes, but other than that, it was largely uninhabited. It was a long stretch of grey-green plantlife, dotted here and there with short, scrubby trees. The trees by the river in Sanctuary had been tall, closer to the oaks and ashes she remembered from before the war. Occasionally she found a copse dense enough to bed down in and Vera would lie awake, staring at the distant stars as she listened to the rustle of the world around her. Then she would flick on the Diamond City radio tab and listen to a stranger talk about more strangers that she would probably never meet.

It rained almost every night. On the days when she was lucky enough to find shelter, Vera woke up only feeling marginally gritty and disgusting. Every other time, she was forced to bed down in wet grass, water soaking through her thin clothes. She’d abandoned the Vault suit on the third day after one of the Concord survivors gave her an old t-shirt and jeans. For once, it was preferable to be dirty and blend in rather than stick out in neon blue. 

At least she had Dogmeat. Ever faithful. The first night out on the road when Vera shouted herself awake, feeling fire racing across her skin from the nightmare, he’d nosed her tear-damp face and let her dig her fingers into the scruff of fur around his neck. It became their nightly ritual. Every night, when Vera curled up with her threadbare blanket, Dogmeat would situate himself in the curve of her body, his head under her chin so his warm breath gusted over her skin. It made her feel sticky and gross more often than not, but when the dreams of fire woke her up, she was grateful for something to sink her shaking hands into. 

It was testament to how thrown off her rhythm Vera was when on the sixth day of walking, she sat down to rest and couldn’t get back up. She’d forgotten to eat anything since yesterday morning, the soles of her ill fitting boots were worn through, her blue woolen coat was getting threadbare and patchy from sleeping on the rough ground, and her canteen of purified water almost empty. Suddenly lightheaded, Vera fell back against the grass, staring up at the seemingly permanently grey sky. 

Everything still felt like such a dream. She’d been hurt more than enough times to know that it was real and she wouldn’t likely sit up in bed, safe and sound with the vestiges of her nightmare fading away, but there were times when Vera squeezed her eyes shut, fingernails digging into her palms, and imagined doing just that. 

Nate would wake up beside her, more than used to nightmares of his own. He would stroke her hair and say in that honey-sweet Virginian drawl she loved, _It’s alright, Ver. Get back to sleep. You’ll need it before the baby wakes us up again._

Sometimes the dream was so convincing, Vera opened her eyes and expected to see the ceiling of their bedroom. Slowly, Vera eased her eyes opened. The chilly sky greeted her, yellow grass haloing the neverending stretch of grey clouds. _How easy would it be to just lie here and not get up?_ Dogmeat wandered over, nosing at her cheek. “Leave me alone,” Vera rasped, one hand lifting as if to bat him away. He whined in his throat. Grabbing the sleeve of her coat in his teeth, he tugged on her hand. “Dogmeat,” Vera snapped. “Go away.” 

The shepherd keened softly, then trotted away, disappearing into the grass. Vera sighed and closed her eyes. Her fingertips dug into the loam beneath her hands. Water from the damp earth was seeping up into her clothes and hair, but Vera didn’t notice the chill. She’d been cold ever since she got out of the cryo pod. Her stomach ached, but Vera just stayed on the ground, breathing softly. She didn’t even stir when the grass rustled. 

Freezing water sprayed across her, dousing her coat and face. Vera gasped, eyes flying open, scrambling up as the water slipped down her skin beneath her skin. Dogmeat shook himself again, sending more water flying from his fur. 

“Dogmeat!” Vera snapped. He wagged his tail. Vera frowned. “Why are you so wet?” she wondered, reaching out to run her fingers through his fur. She grimaced when her hand came away coated in black hair. 

Turning, Dogmeat went through the grass again. Vera didn’t move; she didn’t think she could. She was so tired. He appeared again, head poking out of the grass. Dogmeat woofed. Sucking in a breath, Vera got to her knees, then to her sore feet. Her vision greyed out around the edges. For a moment, it seemed like she would just fall down and be unable to rise - then, to what Vera recognized as disappointment, the vertigo faded. 

She sighed and took one halting step after Dogmeat. He led her a short distance through the grass towards a dense line of windblown trees that looked like they were close to being uprooted. They were leaning a good three feet over a silty riverbank, long branches drooping in the line of murky water that flowed sluggishly westward. Tread worn boots slipping on the mud, Vera sank down the bank until her feet hit the water. It was deeper than expected. 

Vera stared at her reflection. Dirt streaked, pale, unclean. Grabbing the band she’d wrapped her hair in, Vera yanked it off and let the dark ends trail in the water. It was lank. The soft waves Vera had always kept it in were gone; it now hung straight and ugly about her shoulders. Silver streaked through the black, lightening it to a heather grey. She grimaced. “Twenty five and you’re already going grey,” she said to her reflection. 

“You look terrible, too,” her reflection seemed to say. 

Vera grit her teeth. Sucking in a lungful of air, she dunked her head into the river. Hands scraped over her scalp, ragged nails scratching furrows into her skin as she scrubbed weeks worth of dirt and oil off her skin. The only thing that accomplished was to make her look like a drowned rat, but Vera felt a little better being clean, even if she was soaked and freezing. 

That same night, Vera took a knife Sturges had given her and cut a good ten inches off her hair until it hung around her shoulders. She used one of her few matches to light a fire. She burned the bundle of hair and spent the night huddled close, watching the flames.

They stayed by that little river for two days. At least Vera found that bathing every morning made her feel a little less aimless. With the absence of soap, Vera found that scrubbing her skin with sandy soil and a ripped section of her shirt did the job well enough. It was a different matter to wash her clothes, but a long soak in the water sufficed. Whenever the geiger counter in the PipBoy clicked, Vera felt her stomach squeeze in anxiety. Dogmeat seemed hesitant to leave her side. Every time she went to the water to rinse her hair or dirty clothes, he wasn’t far behind. But the morning they left the river, he disappeared into the brush and Vera took the one moment of reprieve to stumble down the riverbank. 

Mud soaked into her knees as she leaned over the river. She stared at her reflection. Her reflection stared back. _How easy would it be?_

Vera dunked her head into the murky water. Immediately, her chest spasmed. The silty liquid clogged her nose and eyes and it made her mouth feel gritty. Air bubbled out of her nose. She couldn’t do it; every time she tried to suck in a breath, an iron band cinched around her chest and prevented her from breathing. 

She pulled up, gasping. Water ran in rivulets down her face, stinging her eyes. Vera scrambled back from the water, clawing at the riverbank as she hauled herself up past the twisted lip of the treeline. She didn’t cry; didn’t know if she could, really. Vera ran her hands through her quickly silvering hair, slicking it back along her head. _Nate wouldn’t be such a coward, and you know it._ Dogmeat came back with a molerat in his jaws and found Vera sitting at the smoking remains of her fire, arms wrapped around her legs.

Vera was more conscious about remembering to eat and drink after that. Dogmeat growled if she didn’t. When he watched her eat every night thereafter, yellow eyes fixed intently on her face, Vera wondered just how much he knew. 

The days blurred together until Vera found herself a few miles away from Parson’s. It was five in the morning. She’d forgone camping that night because of the storm brewing overhead. Some small part of her wondered - hoped - that they’d get to sleep in a real shelter for one night. They’d passed by dilapidated boroughs and neighborhoods a few times, but Vera had never gone close, too scared by the figures she’d seen shambling about. She would if it meant escaping the rain for one night. She still hadn’t seen any people. On her darker nights when her mind ran wild and unchecked, Vera began to think she was the only living person left alive. 

Which was why, maybe, she got so excited when the glow of a fire through the slats in a shack hidden in the trees. Vera perked up. Her footsteps were faster, stumbling over themselves as she hurried down the slope, slipping on the wet grass. 

“Hey!” she shouted. Dogmeat growled low in his chest. Vera paid him no mind. Waving her arm, she shouted again, “Hey!” 

“What the fuck is that?” the voices floated up to her. A seed of doubt burrowed into her chest and Vera thought in the back of her mind, uh oh. 

She skidded to a halt as two men stepped out from the shack. The firelight flickered, throwing their shadows into the darkness. They looked worse than she did, if Vera was honest. Their hair was greasy and short, clothes thread worn. Not their guns, though. Their guns were big, shiny and imposing. The doubt bloomed into fullblown worry. Overhead, thunder rumbled.

“Oh ho,” the man on the left said, hefting his rifle. “What do we have here?” 

Vera lifted her hands. “I don’t want any trouble,” she said, eyes wide, aware of how stupid that sounded. She’d just run up to them shouting. Apparently, post war people did not take kindly to that. Dogmeat was not behind her; he’d slunk off into the dark grass and was nowhere to be found. 

“She doesn’t want any trouble,” the rightmost man said, sneering. He was missing one of his canine teeth. “Should’ve thought about that before you interrupted our drinks. Right, Tom?” 

“I’ll just go,” Vera said, taking a step back. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know you were busy.” 

Tom fired his rifle at the ground to the left of her feet. Vera stiffened, cold adrenaline bursting into her veins. Her legs were shaking. To her credit, the sight of the gun didn’t freeze her entirely motionless. “You’ll go,” he said, “After you give us all your things.” 

“Maybe we’ll have a good time, too,” the man on the right said, cracking his knuckles. The rifle lifted, pointed at Vera’s chest. He laughed, then, and added, “I’ll have a good time robbing you and killing you, but it seems only fair that we get to f-” 

He never finished his sentence. At that minute, Dogmeat launched himself out of the grass at the man on the right. His words dissolved into gurgling as Dogmeat ripped into his throat. Tom shouted, gun jerking around. The rifle went off and Vera flinched, falling back into the grass in surprise. Her hands were shaking in the darkness as she fumbled for the 10 mil jammed into her belt. 

Dogmeat yelped and Vera felt her heart clench in fury. Withdrawing her pistol, Vera popped out of the grass and fired at the backlit shadows in front of the shack. She missed by a mile, but the rifle fell to the dirt as the raider flinched. Snarling, Dogmeat stood back up from where he’d been kicked down and sank his teeth into the arm of the raider, pulling him down, making him writhe on the dirt. Vera fired again three times. The man stopped moving. 

The air fell still. Thunder boomed overhead; fat raindrops began to fall from the clouds, soaking through Vera’s clothes almost immediately. Vera shuddered, getting to her feet. Her heart hammered light a frightened bird, shaking and seizing as she took a step forward - and promptly collapsed back into the grass. 

Gravel stung her palms. Dogmeat was at her side in an instant, nosing at her side. He jarred something just below her ribs and Vera gasped, vision going white as pain lanced through her body. Collapsing onto the opposite side, she rolled over and pressed a hand to her stomach. It was wet. _Rain. It’s raining._ Lifting her hand, Vera stared at the shiny red dripping in watery rivulets down her dirty palms. 

The rifle. It had gone off once - Vera hadn’t even felt it, how - oh _shit._

A broken, shaky laugh burst out of Vera’s mouth. Raindrops fell onto her lips, slipping down into her mouth. They tasted metallic. That was just fucking fantastic. Dogmeat whined, pawing at her jacket. “I know,” Vera rasped, closing her eyes against the rain. “This is not the way I wanted to find out that I don’t want to die.” 

She laid there for a moment, blood leaking out of the hole in her body. Dogmeat grew frantic with every passing second, prancing around her still body and barking until Vera moved. Dragging herself to her knees, Vera half crawled half limped towards the shack where a fire was still burning. She grabbed the fallen rifle as she did, dragging it into the relative dryness of the raider’s hovel. It was disgusting and dirty inside. Chems and needles littered the available surfaces, and where it wasn’t drugs, it was guns. Some things never change. 

Heaving herself up onto a chair, Vera fumbled with the belt across her coat and dropped it to the floor. The coat followed, then the leather jacket underneath, then the flannel. _Goddamn, I wear too many layers._ Pain had made her world hazy and indistinct. Dogmeat seemed to be torn between watching the door and staying by her side. Sucking in a half breath, Vera grabbed the hem of her shirt between two shaking hands and yanked until it ripped. The shreds of her shirt fell to the grimy floorboards, forgotten. 

“Fuck,” she said, straightening enough to see the oozing wound in her stomach. Just below her ribs; it had gone in at an angle, the bullet glancing as Vera fell. A quick touch at her back told her the bullet was still inside _\- stupid, you’d be dead if it wasn’t -_ and a wheezy laugh left her lips. Now that she was aware of it, she could feel it inside and see the way the skin stretched over the bullet. Vera glanced around the shack. 

There was a medkit on the table above her. A suture kit, maybe? Tweezers to remove the bullet? Anything would be a help at this point. Panting, Vera reached up and slapped it off the table. It clattered to the floor, breaking open on the floorboards. She snatched it up, throwing open the lid only to reveal needles and a tourniquet. “Fuck,” she snarled again, weaker this time. Her fingers pressed over the wound as she struggled to her feet. Slumping over onto the edge of the table, she swept everything off of it onto the floor. 

It took a few tries to situate herself on the table so she could lay down. “What would Nate do?” she asked, not for the first time since leaving the vault. 

Nate would remove the bullet first - no, he’d make a plan to seal the wound after the bullet was out. Vera had no gauze, no suture kit - not that she’d know how to stitch herself up anyway. But… she eyed the wrench she’d just knocked onto the floor and then the fire burning in the pit on the floor. A groan left her mouth. “You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me,” she complained, then slid off the table. She buried the round end of the wrench in the coals, then climbed back onto the table. Her pants were getting slicked with more and more blood. 

“This is going to suck,” she declared. No time like the present. 

Vera grit her teeth and plunged her fingers into the bullet hole. She blacked out. When she came to - it must have been only a few seconds later - Dogmeat was barking. Vera rasped out a “shh” and he fell quiet. Her fingers were still in there, so Vera fit the first knuckle of her left hand in between her teeth and bit down as she slipped her fingers forward. The intense feeling of wrongness overcame her as she slid at least half an inch inside her torso until her fingernail clipped the end of the bullet. 

Blood coated her mouth; for a brief second, Vera wondered if the bullet had gone into her stomach, but it was just from the finger in her mouth. She’d bitten into it. Removing the finger, Vera spread her fingers and slid them forward, trying to wrap them around the bullet. “God,” she sobbed, and then desperately wished her parents had raised her to be more religious. If she had been, maybe the thought of what she was about to do wouldn’t be so terrifying. 

It took three tries to get a solid grip on the bullet. Each time she failed, Vera came close to passing out. Each time, she seriously considered the possibilities of walking back to Sanctuary with the bullet in her stomach. Curse words that would’ve made sailors blush slipped out of her mouth with every attempt. The swearing made her feel better so she kept at it, howling profanity into the air without a care of who or what might hear it. When Vera finally got ahold of it, she pulled it out with the agonizing slowness of removing a jagged splinter. 

Fresh blood oozed out of the wound as Vera slumped back on her makeshift operating table. The squashed bullet clattered to the floor. Vera closed her eyes. Dogmeat started barking again, but it wasn’t until he clawed at her dangling arm that Vera managed to tumble sideways and drag herself towards the firepit. Wrapping the exposed bit of wrench in her shirt, Vera pulled it out of the fire. _How is this any better than killing myself?_ She wondered, staring at the glowing cherry red of the wrench. 

Wiping the swell of blood off her stomach, Vera leaned back. Regarded the bullet hole with glassy eyes. Without ado, she pressed the hot end of the wrench against the hole, screamed, and passed out for the second time that night. 

\--

When Vera came to, it was morning. The world smelled clean. Sunlight slanted through the boards of the shack, falling across her bare shoulders. She was topless, huddled around the pile of her clothes on the floor. Dried blood had crusted on them. Her shirt, which had once been white, was now a sticky, rusty brown. Vera blinked, eyes feeling gritty. It took a moment for her brain to focus on her eyes instead of the intense pain in her stomach. A bent, blood splattered bullet was lying in front of her nose. Vera reached out, grabbing it with inarticulate fingers. 

It was cold in her hands. Morbidly, she mused that it might make an interesting souvenir. Rolling it between her thumb and forefinger, Vera slowly pushed herself up. The cauterized scar on her stomach burned. The skin was angry and red, blistered around the bullet scar, but it wasn’t bleeding anymore. She didn’t know what internal bleeding looked like, but she didn’t think she was in danger. Vera licked her lips, desperate for the taste of copper to leave her mouth. 

It took a long while to dress herself - she really wished she had a change of clothes, because the sticky, bloody clothes she was pulling over her open wound were far from ideal. She’d used the shreds of her shirt as a bandages, winding the strips of cotton tight around her burned ribs. The fabric scraped over her blisters, making her wince with every step but hey - she could be dead. 

Stumbling out into the sunlight, Vera leaned on the shack’s support post. The world was fresh, glittering as it always did after a night of rain. Dogmeat was nowhere to be found. The sky was blue. Birds chirps in their trees, flitting across the grassland. The bodies of her two kills were still lying undisturbed where she’d left them last night. Limping over, she knelt down to examine them. The face of the man on the right, the one missing his tooth, was still frozen in an expression of surprise. His throat had been ripped out; rain had pooled in the cavity of his throat and open mouth. Vera grimaced, but went through his pockets anyway. 

She did the same to the other man, pocketing his ammo and caps with a sadistic sort of glee. So _there,_ she thought, getting to her feet. She stared at the dark bullet hole in his forehead for a little longer than she ought to have, but the knowledge that she was the one who had killed him came surprisingly easy. It wasn’t guilt she felt, or remorse. Just a tired sort of sadness. Dogmeat came out of the brush as Vera straightened. His tail was wagging at the sight of her; Vera had never felt so relieved to see him. 

“Hey, bud,” she rasped as his tongue lapped at her bloody fingers. “Where’ve you been, huh?” 

Back inside the shack, Vera began gathering her stuff. She slipped the bullet into her coat pocket and picked up the rifle she’d taken from the corpse last night. It was a nice gun, she could admit that. What had Nate always called them? Bolt action? Regardless - It was nicer than her shitty 10 mil and there was a perverse satisfaction in carrying a gun that had almost been used to kill her, so she slung the strap over her shoulder and turned back around. 

“I’m ready to go home,” she told Dogmeat. He wagged his tail. Together, they walked towards the sluggish river that wound westward through the sandy soil. If she didn’t meander, Vera could be back at Sanctuary in a week, tops. She’d have to talk to Preston about teaching her how to use the rifle. 

She’d make something out of it yet.

**Author's Note:**

> listen, i know that in real life, if you got shot in the abdomen by a .308 round at almost point blank range, you'd be dead, but the sole survivor can take a grenade to the face followed by fifteen seconds of sustained machine gun fire and be just fine, so im gonna say my thing isnt all that outrageous. 
> 
> come say hi on my tumblr blog fanthings! id love to talk.


End file.
